


one more night with you

by smithens



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: As A Treat!, Domestic Service Industry, Fluff and Smut, Getting to Know Each Other, Little A Gay Twink Backstory, London Social Season, M/M, Pillow Talk, Telegrams, They're In Their Honeymoon Phase, Unrated for Eventual Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:20:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23936719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: August, 1927: the Crawleys open up Grantham House for the last time, and Thomas has someone to see.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 52
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morecircumspect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morecircumspect/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic uses custom styles for formatting in the first chapter! I highly recommend turning them on if you normally leave them off. (Without styles, text is in title & sentence case for better readability.)

POST ♛ OFFICE  
TELEGRAPHS  
Prefix. Time handed in. Office of Origin and Service Instruction. Words.

0849 York Rail 33  
  
R Ellis Royal Household Westminster London SW1A

From barrow crawleys in london aug third til sept twenty ninth dont like to presume but wonder if meeting possible left downton already so rsvp grantham house st jamess sq sorry short notice 

POST ♛ OFFICE  
TELEGRAPHS  
Prefix. Time handed in. Office of Origin and Service Instruction. Words.

1455 Mount St Mayfair 100  
  
Barrow Grantham House St Jamess Square SW1Y

Dont be sorry am delighted thought youd forgotten me stop Ive a halfday in Sept used Augs on tour keeping fingers xed I can fly coop running errands before then stop St Js not far but lets let season dust settle stop When is best for RDV ? Send dates Ill see what I can do might manage night off if so inclnd ? Know place but adv notice reqd stop Pleased you tgramd been thinking of you very keen to see you again Reply to bckngm p 1aa no initial just mind what you put isnt private ! Thanks

POST ♛ OFFICE  
TELEGRAPHS  
Prefix. Time handed in. Office of Origin and Service Instruction. Words.

1759 Regent St Night Service 18  
  
Ellis Royal Household Buckingham Palace SW1A 1AA

Yes so inclined your choice between Sept first tenth eightnth twenty fifth are all your telegrams so long

POST ♛ OFFICE  
TELEGRAPHS  
Prefix. Time handed in. Office of Origin and Service Instruction. Words.

0601 Buckingham Palace 1  
  
Barrow Grantham House St Jamess Square SW1Y

No

POST ♛ OFFICE  
TELEGRAPHS  
Prefix. Time handed in. Office of Origin and Service Instruction. Words.

0634 Regent St 5  
  
Ellis Royal Household Buckingham Palace SW1A 1AA

Silly if you ask me

POST ♛ OFFICE  
TELEGRAPHS  
Prefix. Time handed in. Office of Origin and Service Instruction. Words.

0702 Buckingham Palace 2  
  
Barrow Grantham House St Jamess Square SW1Y

I didnt

POST ♛ OFFICE  
TELEGRAPHS  
Prefix. Time handed in. Office of Origin and Service Instruction. Words.

1748 Regent St 6  
  
Ellis Royal Household Buckingham Palace SW1A 1AA

Just let me know thank you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "say, smithens," you say, "don't you have like, six recent WIPs that need an update?" 
> 
> and then i block you!
> 
> just kidding. but if you are thinking that, i am sorry to keep you waiting! i also do not want to be not updating things. but i have post-coronavirus pneumonia (i am lucky to have gotten over the worst of the respiratory infection & to have excellent healthcare available to me, so don't worry!) & my life's been thrown off kilter, so some of the stuff just isn't getting done how i like. and i'd rather wait a while to write and post good chapters than to battle with my overloaded brain and put up not great ones. not what i wanted but then none of us wanted a pandemic in 2020 did we? :p
> 
> anyway this will be short(ish) and sweet ! next chapters are prose; i promise. 
> 
> last thing: if this were a songfic, the song in question would be [feels right by carly rae jepsen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_5CcqeCl2U).


	2. Chapter 2

Of all the times he's been tangled up in bedsheets with a man he'd just met, now is the best he can remember.

Maybe because in this case _just met_ means a month ago.

Usually it means an hour, if that.

But nothing about what he has with Richard is very usual, is it.

* * *

"You make me feel young again," Thomas confesses, "you make me feel – "

When Richard kisses him, he quiets.

"You are young."

They both are — not as young as they used to be, but nobody is. That's the nature of life. You grow, and change, in mind and body alike, and everybody else changes alongside you. Ideally they do it for the better.

"Reminds me of the season," says Thomas, idly. "My first ones, I mean, before…"

Richard nods.

"...er, yeah. Erm, footmen have better excuses to leave the house than butlers do, but even so…" He squeezes Richard's hand, then flexes his own and slips away — it's a short-lived disappointment, because he only sets it upon Richard's hip after, fingers gently pressing. Richard adjusts his weight on his elbow and finds, far and away not for the first time, that as he looks down at him he can't tear his eyes away. "I didn't always make it back before breakfast."

"I'll get you back on time, Mr Barrow."

"Ever the gentleman."

Couldn't be further from the truth, but he isn't about to complain.

"Wish we could do this every night. Like then."

"We might could," Richard says mildly. He's given the matter a good pondering, in the last few days, and though it'd be risky... "I know somebody with space."

They don't need to spend the whole month's pay on getting rooms.

He may be confident about this place, and he'd trust the publican with his life, but a pattern's a pattern and those are to be avoided.

(Unreasonably optimistic, though, to think they'll have more than this from here on out. At best it'll be like August — stolen fractions-of-an-hour preceded by last minute telegrams, and both back to their houses before anyone's the wiser.)

"You know a lot of people, don't you, Mr Ellis?"

Thomas's face is indecipherable: eyebrows raised unevenly, gaze steady, lips closed but with no tension in them at all. _He's very pretty,_ Richard finds himself thinking, but it's an unproductive thought under the circumstances. The last thing he wants is to give off the impression that he does this very often, and that's bound to be what he's doing — minding his words comes easy around everyone but Thomas.

When he closes his eyes his dark lashes contrast against his fair skin; the scattered light from the window hits his jaw and cheekbone in just the right way... 

And he thinks he was more of a looker in his youth. 

Richard can't imagine it. He likes him as a grown man and more than he can remember having liked anybody, at that.

 _Unproductive,_ but no less true.

"I know enough people," Richard answers. "What's more important is trusting them."

Thomas opens his eyes. (Too blue for words, but complicated by gray — he wants to remember all of it, every detail, every line, every colour and every shape, because he's not going to be in London forever.) "Do you trust me?" he asks, coy.

Richard presses his thumb to his smooth lower lip; Thomas breathes through his mouth, warmth on the exhale. 

He tilts his thumb until it's in Thomas's mouth, and then he's sucking on it and looking at him up through his eyelashes.

For a second, he forgets how to speak.

"Would I be doing this if I didn't?" he breathes once it's passed.

Thomas draws his head back, kisses his thumb and then the side of his hand before settling once more with his head on the pillow.

"I don't know," he answers, earnest, eyes a little wide. 

"I trust you," says Richard. He curls the duvet in his fingers, wiping off his thumb, and Thomas smiles at him.

"Only known me a month," he counters. "Can't very much."

"Well, I trusted you not to bite my cock off, didn't I?"

Thomas laughs, loud and sharp. "If that's all, you could trust any bloke off the street _that much_..."

"I don't cruise," Richard interrupts, more harshly than he intends.

Thomas stops speaking but leaves his mouth open, taut at the corners, taken aback. "No," he says eventually, with a swallow that pulses in his throat and a nervous laugh. "No, I suppose you wouldn't."

"And it's not all," as soft as he can, to make up for it.

Richard untucks his arm and makes to lie down beside him properly, but he presses a kiss to his forehead first. Just to be sure.

* * *

They're silent for too long, so Thomas changes the subject. Or, goes back to one. His cheeks feel hot — hopefully it's too dark for him to notice he blushes. _Embarrassing_ doesn't begin to cover it. "You and I both know we can't, though."

"Can't what?"

"Run around like we're footmen," Thomas tells him, with a poke to his waist under the covers. Richard cringes at the touch, his mouth twisting but his eyes bright.

Ticklish.

Good to know.

"Not in the job description anymore," returns Richard eventually, mild. Thomas has to resist the urge to put his palm on his cheek and just feel. "Not the season anymore, neither."

"Yeah," Thomas says, for lack of anything better to say. Richard smiles — he has a talent for that, if that's a thing you _can_ have a talent for. Even with his mouth closed his eyes crinkle up and it sits easy on his face in a way that has to be genuine. "Er, dunno if I remember the last time I was up here in September." 

"No?"

"Would've been years, probably. Maybe for an errand. Something to do with the house. When I was underbutler..."

He's sleepy enough the words just keep falling out of his mouth, but he has no idea where he's going with them.

"Hm?" says Richard.

"When they opened the house sometimes they brought me instead of Carson, but it was different, 'cause I didn't know anybody here anymore… how long've you worked in the Royal Household, did you say?"

There go the eyebrows again.

"'Bout twenty years."

Thomas stops resisting; Richard smiles when he touches him. His chin is stubbly, and the roots of his hair are still damp with sweat, and he shivers when Thomas strokes the underside of his jaw, eyelids fluttering.

The last time he felt at all like this must have been ten years ago at least.

He's missed it. That feeling you get when somebody likes you the way you like him and doesn't bother to hide it... the soft sensation in his head, the butterflies in his stomach. 

Smiling at someone who's smiling back. 

Touching someone careful and him doing the same.

Thinking about your words before they're out of your mouth; watching where you put your hands.

Bloody hell has he missed it.

"All that time not fifteen minutes apart, for four months out of the year," says Richard, eyes now shut. 

He understands, well and truly. Like nobody else ever has.

"They don't come up all the time like they used to," Thomas murmurs. It softens the blow and makes it hurt more at the same time.

He hasn't forgotten why they're up now.

"That'd make this easier, wouldn't it."

"I don't know when we'll be back."

If they ever will be.

You don't exactly sell a house some place you intend on returning to very often.

"You could always come up without them," Richard says, soft. "We could make plans."

His heart thuds in his chest; his breathing quickens. "With all this time off I've got lying around," he returns, reining in the spite as much as he can. Footmen may have better _excuses_ to escape than valets do, but they've still both got more _chances_ than butlers, especially when there are two blokes in the same job who don't mind covering for each other every so often.

Or very often, in Richard's case.

If he ever actually meets this Mr Miller (funny that he stayed in the bloody house and he still hasn't, or, not properly at least) he probably owes him a drink.

"Next year, then," idly, almost careless. If he knows just what he's suggesting with _next year_ he isn't showing it. "And I'm hoping I can come home at Christmas, but I'll not make promises I don't know I can keep."

 _Next year,_ Thomas thinks again. _Next year, next year, next year..._

"Next year," he repeats.

"Yeah," says Richard, but then he stills; his eyes flicker open and he draws his head back, discerning. There's a quirk at his mouth, but this smile doesn't reach his eyes like the others do. "Don't like to _presume…_ "

Throwing his own words back at him.

"No," Thomas says, a lump budding in his throat. _Go away,_ he tells it. "No, I – I'd like that."

"I don't want this to be a handful of days plucked out of one season and forgotten by the next."

They must have done things differently when they were younger, because Thomas always did a very bad job of forgetting _anything._ "Not the season anymore," he says after a moment. If Richard's going to echo him he may as well do the same.

He still feels like he's about to cry for some reason, but Richard's smile widens. Just like that the uncanny stillness is gone.

"And thank Heaven for that."

"You don't like it?"

"Never have," says Richard. Even lying down he finds a way to shrug. "I had fun and all, back when I was younger, but it's something of a chore these days. Spend most of it steaming velvet."

"Well, that _is_ a chore," and Thomas trails his fingertips back behind his ear, down his neck, settling his hand at the back of his shoulder. "So I don't know why you'd feel differently."

He has nice shoulders. Muscle from carrying all those trunks around, probably.

This is bound to be the first time he's gone an entire month ( _more_ than that) before seeing a man in the nude.

"When they told us about the tour back in January I thought I'd be getting out of the worst of it, but no such luck."

"It was only a few weeks," Thomas tells him, amused.

"Yeah," returns Richard, sheepish. "But I'm good at wishful thinking."

"If you do say so yourself..."

The optimism's in everything he does, though. Can't miss it. He's been like that since the very beginning, and it goes well with the determination. 

If it were anyone else it would bother him, if he'd rejected somebody three times and then he kept asking, but seeing as he never genuinely wanted to say no in the first place...

"Never do get to go home in the summer," Richard says, pensive. "I'd missed it."

He'd said.

"And it missed you?"

Richard smiles. "Mum can never make her mind up if she wants me to hand in my notice or stick around up here til I die."

Thomas feels a twist in his gut and does his best to ignore it.

"What does she expect, that you'll move back in with her?"

If he doesn't start minding his tone of voice this is not going to go especially well, and he _knows_ that, but that doesn't make it easy.

At least Richard's kind about it, but second chances usually aren't unlimited.

"I reckon," he says. "There's a family business, but technically I'm third in line for it."

God, he has everything, doesn't he.

"Technically," Thomas repeats.

"Room for me in the name," he says wryly. "Ellis and _Sons_. Wasn't in the books for a time, is all, room I mean, and my aunt was here under Victoria, so getting me in was neat and tidy. Rest of the boys I knew were sent into service had to try a bit harder than I did."

A bit.

At least by the look on his face he knows it's an understatement. Not that Thomas is one to talk — he connived his way into his first place.

"And I like the benefits."

"I'll say."

He imagines the _family business_ would be of no help in getting somebody out of jail, for one thing.

"Wouldn't be paradise back home, neither, I get on better with my sisters… but how about you, what about your own family?"

So much for ignoring it.

"Dead or good as," Thomas murmurs. It doesn't sound as harsh as he'd thought it might. 

Richard nods, a small furrow in his brow. "Sorry."

"Don't be."

Another nod.

"So," says Thomas, hoarse. "You didn't miss the season."

Thankfully, he takes the hint.

"Well, it was still on when the tour ended, wasn't it?" Richard replies, blithe. "Been catching up on sleep since they adjourned Parliament." He pauses. "Since I got back, actually."

"Can't imagine your last night with _us_ was very restful…"

And tonight is unlikely to do him any favours.

"You sound awfully pleased with yourself," Richard says, but he's one to talk, smiling like that. Smug bastard. He slips his arm under Thomas's own and lays his hand on his hip.

"Do I?"

The pinch to his backside is probably deserved. Thomas yelps, turning his face into the pillow just in time, and when he looks back up Richard is laughing at him.

"But yeah," he says, a touch breathless, beaming and self-satisfied and by no means unattractive for it. "Yeah, travelling for work's always exhausting."

Thomas nods.

"And I don't mind telling you I'd rather not've spent time anywhere near the police station."

His stomach drops.

"Look, I can never thank you enough for – "

"Shut up, Mr Barrow," Richard interrupts, grinning, and though Thomas doesn't expect the kiss he has no trouble returning it.

Richard happens to be a very, very good kisser.

* * *

Kissing Thomas is better every time, and it is with reluctance that Richard breaks it off.

"Sorry I had to," he whispers, their lips still close. He can feel him breathing. "Wish it hadn't turned out the way it did."

"Was my own fault."

"How'd you get to that pub in the first place, d'you remember."

"I, er…" Thomas squirms; their knees knock together.

This man can get to behaving like the weather.

"I didn't mean for that to be a difficult question," Richard says carefully. He finally pulls away, and Thomas keeps his eyes closed.

"No, I just – look, I liked it," he says shortly. Dancing, he means. "I know it shouldn't ever've happened, I _know,_ but – "

"You deserved to have a good time."

And he hasn't stopped feeling jealous just yet, himself.

"Yeah, well, it's good I had you, then, isn't it?"

Richard pulls him nearer by pressing at the small of his back, pressing another kiss to his forehead once he's close enough for it. 

He's warm. Nice to share a bed with. The prickliness isn't so bad as it could be, and slowly but surely Richard is learning what to do when it comes up — or, he thinks he is. He's trying, if nothing else.

"Sorry," murmurs Thomas. "Sorry I went off without you, and," he takes a deep breath, "sorry I didn't write."

And while he did find himself upset about that, he deserves a share of the blame, too, doesn't he? He didn't write, himself.

That'll have to change, once he's back to Downton.

"Bad at it," Thomas adds. "Haven't in a while, and besides I don't know anybody who has – don't want – well." He chuckles awkwardly. "I get nervous. About love letters."

So he's told him.

"Well, you have good reasons to be," says Richard slowly.

"Been ages," says Thomas, a self-deprecating edge in his voice. He almost trails off before speaking again, and it's just when Richard opens his mouth that he rolls onto his back and adds, "shouldn't care about it, should I? Too old to worry about such things."

Life doesn't work that way, and they both know it (he hopes). Nothing does, for people like them. They'll be worrying for years yet to come, Richard is sure of it, but he's also sure it won't be like that forever. It can't be. 

Richard pushes himself up to put his weight on his elbow again and surveys him; he lays his palm on his chest, watches the lift and fall as he breathes. It strikes him that he'd like to lay his head down and hear his heartbeat, but that would be asking too much at the moment.

They'll have to sleep eventually. Maybe then.

"You're young," he repeats. If this keeps up he's going to snap at him to stop talking like he's on death's doorstep for Christ's sake, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't know all too well the feeling like it was all about to be over.

And Thomas has brushed up against obsolescence far too many times for somebody so resilient as he is.

"Older than you are."

So brave as he is.

"Don't think that matters much, does it?" And it can't _be_ by much. "How old are you?" Richard adds. He is curious, after all the fuss.

"Coming up on thirty-nine," Thomas says curtly. "You?"

"Just turned thirty-six in May."

Thomas huffs.

Whether he thinks he's proved his point or not remains to be seen, but just when Richard opens his mouth...

"I wanted to write," Thomas murmurs. "I did."

"It'd only been about a week before you telegrammed."

A little more, actually, but Thomas doesn't need to know he was counting… besides, it hardly matters, now that they're both in London. It's more than he'd dared hope for when he left Downton Abbey.

Even if it'll have to come to an end eventually.

"Yeah — God, do you know how fucking stupid it feels to send a telegram to a place within walking distance?"

"York's not walking distance, Mr Barrow..."

(How foolish is it, that he still likes to call him that?)

"I meant since then," sharp.

And he's certainly sent more in the last month than in the last year combined — bad for his wallet but good for his heart, so worth it in the end.

"...but wouldn't it be nice, if it was?"

Below him Thomas's brow furrows; he turns his head and gives him a _look_ before softening. 

Smiling never fails. Having a handsome face is a privilege he probably takes for granted. 

"It would be," Thomas says softly. 

At the drop of a hat he can become the sweetest man he's ever known… He has facets, Thomas, as all men do, but Richard can't recall ever wanting to know somebody's sides and secrets the way he does now. Yeah, he's always been nosy, always wanted to figure men out, always wanted to leap first and look later, but with _Thomas Barrow_ it's –

"I've a friend," he starts, sudden, because if he doesn't come up with something to say he'll surely run his mouth, "at a post office in Mayfair."

"And?"

"I made him type some of those up and send the messenger boy over."

The words have time to settle before Thomas laughs.

"I was wondering how you got away with writing me _novels_..."

"Don't want it all going through cable."

"Could've fooled me," Thomas replies. But he's smiling.

"Didn't I?"

He's _smiling,_ and it lights up his whole damn face. "Where're all the footmen when you need 'em?" he asks, playful. He jabs him in the waist again, and Richard laughs involuntarily before he manages to grit his teeth and stifle it.

Thomas laughs, too.

"Not working for us," Richard says finally.

"Yeah, well, that'd be nice, too." He's teasing, eyes crinkled at the corners. One of his hands is fidgeting with the quilt, and noticing it makes Richard realise he's been curling his fingers through the hair at his sternum. He stops. "Could do with somebody to carry over my love notes."

The words are a touch derisive, but he still looks amused more than anything else. He tucks his chin and looks, probably, at Richard's hand on his chest.

"Handwritten," Richard says, his ears going warm.

"On perfumed stationery."

"Accompanied by a calling card…"

"Well, I've already got your calling card."

Richard blinks.

"Did you go searching my pockets?" he asks lightly. It's not an accusation, and he probably won't even mind if so, but –

"No," long and drawn out and teasing. "And don't you go searching mine," Richard raises his eyebrows, "but it's in that waistcoat, I think…"

The one on the floor, he means.

(As if there were more than one.)

"You gave it to me," Thomas says, a quirk at the corners of his mouth, self-satisfied. "You are well-credentialed, Mr Ellis… or don't you remember?"

He's enjoying this too much, whatever it is.

"Just before you decided touching my lips right outside the bloody station was the best way to tell me you were a – "

Oh.

" – er, the same."

"That's the only part I remember," Richard confesses.

It is.

The look on his face was nothing short of perfect.

"You're not very decorous, you know that?" Thomas says, earnest.

"Did I ever claim to be?" 

"I think you'd like me to think you were."

Thomas reaches up and thumbs at Richard's lower lip, then his chin and along his jaw, swiping back and forth. "And you like to look it, don't you."

He's a bit too intentional with his touching for that not to be tongue-in-cheek.

"I like to be clean-cut," Richard tells him. 

But it's three in the morning and day two, unfortunately, so he isn't.

He is _very_ lucky nobody in the Household paid close attention the day before.

Thomas nods. "Your hair's darker than it looks," he muses. 

"You're one to talk."

"My hair is _as dark_ as it looks," except for where it's silver, at his temples and at the back of his neck — and his jaw, too, if Richard looks close, which he has been. "You didn't shave yesterday, did you?"

Caught out.

Richard laughs, awkward.

"If you were under me, Mr Ellis, I'd scold you."

"I _was_ under you," Richard says, before he can stop himself, and Thomas bops him on the head and laughs before drawing back.

Richard presses down on his chest, palm over his nipple, threading his fingers through his hair on purpose, now, and with his other hand Thomas grabs his wrist but doesn't pull him off or do much of anything else.

If he said that his palm didn't feel odd he'd be lying, but the glove would be worse, and he's not going to forget the look on his face when he told him to keep it off back in Downton.

Or wherever it was — somewhere off a side road between the village and York.

Rather a miracle they ever made it back to the house, in retrospect.

When Thomas sighs he lets his hand fall; Richard takes it and gives his fingers a gentle squeeze.

It makes him hum in the same way a scratch behind the ears might make a cat purr, so he entwines their fingers and explores with his fingertips, pressing between the bones in his hand.

For a little while, they don't speak.

* * *

At the sound of Richard's voice Thomas jerks awake.

He hadn't actually realised he was sleeping.

"Sorry," Richard says, with a broad grin.

"What," says Thomas, irritation seeping into his voice.

"Said you were falling asleep."

Well, apparently he was.

He grumbles, and then all at once Richard is curled up around him with his head on his chest and one arm slung over, serene as can be.

Thomas likes having him there, he finds, and he wraps his arm around his waist and holds him still, listens to him breathe.

The next thing he knows, the sun is shining.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i should just stop estimating how long fics are going to be / how many chapters i'm going to have because i'm literally always short of reality when i do lol... this one at least stayed at the length it was supposed to be ! (because i chopped it into bits and pieces. but shhh.)

It's three o'clock in the afternoon, and they're holed up in a-friend-of-Richard's flat several storeys up from an alley off Endell Street.

At this point if Richard told him he knew every homosexual in London Thomas would probably believe him. It's impressive but not exactly surprising — he'd be a bad valet if he didn't know _anybody,_ and just because Thomas doesn't know any of them anymore doesn't mean that London's not full of queer servants and drapers and hairdressers and jewelers and plenty of other more respectable occupations that do not immediately come to mind when he thinks about it but that Richard _can assure him_ are also ways to make a living for their sort of people.

Easy for him to tell other blokes to be circumspect, when he doesn't have to go very far or look very hard to come across anybody like he is; no wonder he doesn't cruise...

But it isn't like that.

He's said so. 

And Thomas shouldn't complain. Not when Mr Vivian Wright, telephone engineer, has so generously given them time and space and a bed to use while the Crawleys are off to tea and dinner in Kent, of all places, but he's not going to complain about that, neither.

Because this is a very nice bed, and Richard, who is wearing only a blanket, is doing a very nice job of taking off his tie at a fucking snail's pace, and he doesn't even mind that he can't shut up about the Crawleys.

* * *

"...the point is, they don't have much use for me..."

Thomas is lying on the bed flat on his back with his hands folded over his sternum, eyes closed, words spilling out of his mouth. 

Just above him the rain is falling in sheets past the window, a ceaseless rush. The end of summer is drawing nearer with each passing day and they've the weather to show for it, and though it's an unwelcome reminder of what's to come, he does still have a few weeks left in London.

And Richard would like to make the most of them — what he's here for, at least. Won't be all of it, and it won't be enough, but it'll be something to tide him over until they can meet again.

Eventually Thomas stops berating himself to breathe; he takes the opportunity when he sees it. "I thought the Granthams seemed to like you." 

Thomas's eyes flicker open; his brow furrows. "Talked about me over tea, did you?"

Richard opens his mouth before he knows what to say.

"If they do," adds Thomas, "they have a funny way of showing it."

"If it helps at all, I don't think His Majesty knows my Christian name."

"It'd be easier if they didn't know mine," he grumbles, "you know they still bloody _use it_ …"

Thomas unclasps his hands and drapes his arm over his face, eyes to the inside of his elbow, and Richard returns to the buttons of his shirt.

He'd had other things in mind for the afternoon than grousing about work.

"Her Ladyship – er, the _Countess_ of _Grantham_ , I mean," with his lips quirked; he'll never stop poking fun at him for using his manners, "whenever we're in the same room she keeps going on about how packing up the house reminds her of the _war_ , and running the convalescent home _with Thomas,_ but her memory must be going 'cause as I remember it she did that with _Sergeant Barrow_ – "

"Convalescent home?"

_With Sergeant Barrow._

His arm falls back to the pillow, instead, and he cocks an eyebrow. "Yeah."

Richard nods, slow.

They lived entire lives before meeting one another, and the more time they spend together, the easier it is to forget.

He starts untucking Thomas's shirt from his trousers.

"Yeah. And I don't need to relive it every day."

There's a hint he can take. Richard keeps his mouth shut.

After he's gone they can write, and telephone, and there will be all the time in the world for learning what he doesn't know now, if only he's patient.

"But it's as I said, Lady Mary's not exactly happy to have me around instead of Carson, only he's been laid up since you lot were at Downton, big surprise there, and – and I don't know _why,_ I always thought we got on all right, er, that's me and Lady Mary, but now she won't stop – and I'm good at my job, Dick."

"I don't doubt it," Richard returns.

"I'm not _joking_."

 _I'm not making fun of you,_ he wants to say, and he wants to ask, _why is it you always think I'm making fun of you —_

"Neither am I," he says. He'd seen it, whether Thomas thinks so or not, if technically he was only at the helm for only an evening and a morning. But he ran a tight ship, and his staff seemed fond of him. Can't say that for every butler.

Can't say that for the previous butler at the Abbey, as a matter of fact.

Thomas huffs; he squeezes his eyes shut and then rubs at them with his fist before dropping his arm back at his side. 

Richard twists the fabric of his vest between his fingers and tugs. 

He didn't go about this in the right order, did he? Should've at least gotten his tie out from around his neck...

"She's nervous," mutters Thomas eventually. He does lift his head when Richard starts pulling at the tie, which is about as much as acknowledgment of his efforts as he's yet gotten. "About money, I guess. And Carson's sick, and the Dowager's dying – "

"I didn't know."

Thomas scoffs. "Why would you?"

He shrugs, uncomfortable.

"Yeah, well, she's set now on keeping the Abbey because of it, and let me tell you she wasn't a few months ago, but I don't think her heart's in it like it used to be."

"Yeah?" asks Richard. He starts to pull a brace strap off of his shoulder before opting instead to unbutton it properly, but he only gets through the one before he changes his mind about that, too.

There's no need to beat around the bush.

He hooks two fingers under the waistband of his trousers.

"It's different," Thomas murmurs. "S'all different. Back when I started it seemed like the only thing she cared about was the house, and now…"

"Well, the world's not the same as it used to be."

Thomas reaches up and presses his fingers to Richard's face, taking hold of his chin, directing his gaze... there's a smile at his lips and a glint in his eyes. "Either we talk about work or you stick your hands down my trousers, but we're not doing both at the same time, understand?"

"Which do you prefer," says Richard wryly.

He lets go of him to push himself up to his elbows, and then he's sitting up with his hand upon his cheek, and then –

* * *

Richard sighs into his mouth before reciprocating, and Thomas takes his chance to catch his upper lip between his teeth and pull, not too hard — just enough to make him shudder, which he does.

Very beautifully.

Sensitive man.

Thomas strokes at his cheek with his thumb as he breaks it off, and though Richard isn't _smiling_ exactly, his eyes are as happy as he ever sees them.

"When did you say you had to be back?"

And then it's gone. "Half five," Richard murmurs.

Thomas nods. "So, we're done here… what, _at_ five?"

"Maybe quarter til to be safe."

He won't argue with that logic, not when he's already been late in one way or another about five times already.

And that's not even including Downton.

Thomas drags his hand down from Richard's head to his neck, and then to his shoulder and upper arm; his skin is warm to the touch. "I think you know what I'd prefer."

Probably he shouldn't have stopped him from petting in the first place.

"You'd best be more accommodating, then, Mr Barrow," says Richard, and now he _is_ smiling, as if he might burst into laughter at any moment. "If that's so."

"Don't have to tell me twice."

So he lets Richard pull off his braces and get him out of his shirt, lets him unbutton his trousers, lets him press his thumbs to his collarbones and grope down his chest while he takes off his underwear, which is an odd thing for him to be doing but not odd enough that Thomas is prone to comment on it when it _feels good_ —

Everything feels good, with him.

He knows what he's doing.

Once Thomas is nude and they're on even terms he flops back down onto the bed, feeling like he's floating; Richard, however, stays in his place seated next his hips. He's not shy about looking him over from head to toe and back again.

Neither of them are strangers to doing this sort of thing quick… but maybe they are to doing it quick in a _bed,_ with somebody they don't mind seeing everything.

If anything was going to make it difficult it'd be that.

Normally he doesn't care so much.

Richard is staring at him so intensely — at what's between his legs, that is — that he's already starting to feel dizzy.

"You bring anything?" he asks, and his voice is softer than he means for it to be.

"Vaseline," Richard says, with an airy manner that doesn't quite fit the word. He lays his hand at the inside of Thomas's thigh; reflexively, his leg jerks. When he laughs, Richard looks back to his face, eyebrows halfway up his fucking forehead. "Ticklish?"

"Don't you dare," Thomas says, and though Richard comes at him fast it's only to press a kiss to the side of his mouth before going to search through his coat.

The bed feels different without him in it.

Something about getting ready to have sex in somebody else's house rattles him, but he can't put his finger on what. It would rattle anybody, he suspects, it's not exactly something you do every day, but...

"How'd you meet?" he calls over, and Richard lifts his head, questioning. It's only a flash on his face before he seems to realise whom he means, and he stands up straight, coat draped over his forearm and held close to his body, before saying anything.

"Not in the way you seem to be thinking."

"You don't know what I'm thinking," Thomas counters.

Richard nods. He thumbs at the flap of a pocket on his coat. When Thomas raises his eyebrows he turns away, toward the bedroom door — there are three locks between them and the rest of the world and they are both, Thomas thinks, doing their best not to worry about the risks that come along with what they're doing — and then back, but with his eyes downcast.

"Mutual friend," Richard says, more confidently than before, and Thomas reacts just in time to catch the tin of vaseline as it comes flying in his direction. 

"Watch it," and after twisting the cap off he sets the container on the bed beside him.

Easy access, whether they need it or not.

He hopes they will.

Other things they can do, and they don't quite have the time to go as far as he wants, he knows that, but what's wrong with hoping, really? Nothing is what.

Richard's staring at him when he looks up, his head set back, considering, a quirk in his lips.

 _Probably_ not in a way he ought to feel offended over...

"Yes?" asks Thomas, short.

"Good catch," says Richard, a touch faintly, smiling properly again — isn't he always? And he doesn't put his coat down until he's back to bed, dropping it on the floor without ceremony and then draping himself in the sheet as he climbs back in.

He's a modest one, Thomas has come to notice. 

It makes sense and it doesn't at the same time.

He searches under the covers to set his hand on Richard's bare thigh; the laugh that results is breathless, and the kiss he presses to Thomas's cheek is sloppy in an endearing sort of way. He lets him push his hand off, and it doesn't matter especially that he does, because he only presses their palms together after, beaming.

If he were anybody else on Earth the sunny disposition would infuriate him, but Richard has been like this since the beginning and it's charmed him the whole time.

He's been like this _with Thomas_ since the beginning.

It took him too long to look back at the week he'd been at Downton to figure that out.

 _Nobody would behave like this with a bloke he didn't fancy,_ Thomas finds himself thinking. _What lies have I been telling myself. Why did I let myself forget what this can be._

Now he's remembering.

"...how'd you meet him?"

He's curious.

"The friend?"

Thomas nods. He squeezes Richard's fingers between his own.

"Was some years back," answers Richard vaguely, and though his eyes are fixed at their joined hands…

"I asked how, not when."

Hopefully, curiosity has better things to be doing this afternoon than killing cats.

"Well," still casual. "I'd rather you knew that bit first."

So it is like that, then. 

Maintaining their touch, Thomas makes to lie down again, curled up at Richard's side with his head supported by his other hand and elbow. "I won't be jealous," he says, soft, teasing, circling the back of Richard's hand with his thumb. 

(He might be jealous.)

"I happened to be in the right place at the right time, Mr Barrow."

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr as [@combeferre](https://combeferre.tumblr.com)!


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